Onboard RAID advice

newbiejim · 12 Jul 2006 at 15:01

I have 4 x Seagate 200gb SATA hdds and have an Asus P5AD2-E Premium mobo that has Silicon Image 3114 RAID controller that supports RAID 0,RAID1, and RAID 10 and also RAID 5 via 'a software patch' (from the manual), it also has the Intel ICH6R controller which allows RAID 0 and 1 for 4 SATA drives.
I would like RAID 5 but I have read that the Silicon Image controller is poor in this config and so am considering 2 in RAID 0 and 2 in RAID 1 if this is possible? as this would give me some fast storage and some 'safe' storage (well unless the mobo fries) lol.

In short are these onboard RAID solutions typically poor?,would it be worthwhile getting a dedicated RAID controller card?

semi-pro waster · 12 Jul 2006 at 15:53

When you say you might want 2xRaid0 + 2xRaid1 do you mean that you want two striped and two mirroring the striped drives or just two independant Raid arrays? To have all drives working together as I think you are suggesting you would need a controller that supports Raid0+1.

Onboard Raid has been fine when I have used it but it is unlikely to compare to a good aftermarket solution because it will be using the CPU to calculate and is likely to be less robust. If it was as good then there would be no market for most of these cards at all.

newbiejim · 12 Jul 2006 at 16:17

semi-pro waster said:
When you say you might want 2xRaid0 + 2xRaid1 do you mean that you want two striped and two mirroring the striped drives or just two independant Raid arrays? To have all drives working together as I think you are suggesting you would need a controller that supports Raid0+1.

Onboard Raid has been fine when I have used it but it is unlikely to compare to a good aftermarket solution because it will be using the CPU to calculate and is likely to be less robust. If it was as good then there would be no market for most of these cards at all.

I was thinking 2 separate RAID arrays, is that not possible?, however it gets worse...lol, I just unpacked the drives as I just took delivery..and only ONE is the correct model I ordered.....ONE is an IDE ffs.......the other is SATA but a different model tho same vendor....grrrrrr

semi-pro waster · 13 Jul 2006 at 01:33

newbiejim said:
I was thinking 2 separate RAID arrays, is that not possible?, however it gets worse...lol, I just unpacked the drives as I just took delivery..and only ONE is the correct model I ordered.....ONE is an IDE ffs.......the other is SATA but a different model tho same vendor....grrrrrr

On the bright side you have more time to figure out what is possible on your system at least

It will depend on your controller what Raid system(s) you can set up, do you have two separate systems or is it all under one controller? For instance on my motherboard it is a Promise and Via(been a long time since I looked) chipset so I can set up totally different Raid systems on each.

Dutch Guy · 13 Jul 2006 at 10:27

Do NOT use raid5 with a sofware onboard controller, they are very slow.

If you want to have a system that is fast and have redundancy perhaps make a RAID0+1 setup, that way you get the benefit of a speed increase and redundacy, but the total usable space will be 400Gb

If you make a RAIDo and a RAID1 setup you will have 400Gb that is very fast but havs no redundancy and 200Gb that is slower but will have redundancy.

For RAID0, 1 or 0+1 a onboard solution is good enough, for RAID 5 or 10 you will be better off getting a separate RAID card.

newbiejim · 13 Jul 2006 at 16:35

semi-pro waster said:
On the bright side you have more time to figure out what is possible on your system at least

It will depend on your controller what Raid system(s) you can set up, do you have two separate systems or is it all under one controller? For instance on my motherboard it is a Promise and Via(been a long time since I looked) chipset so I can set up totally different Raid systems on each.

yes I have 2 controllers, SI and err and Intel I think but both can do 0 and 1, now i have to go through this RMA convoluted carry on, grrrr

Dutch Guy said:
Do NOT use raid5 with a sofware onboard controller, they are very slow.

If you want to have a system that is fast and have redundancy perhaps make a RAID0+1 setup, that way you get the benefit of a speed increase and redundacy, but the total usable space will be 400Gb

If you make a RAIDo and a RAID1 setup you will have 400Gb that is very fast but havs no redundancy and 200Gb that is slower but will have redundancy.

For RAID0, 1 or 0+1 a onboard solution is good enough, for RAID 5 or 10 you will be better off getting a separate RAID card.

superb considered answer/advice, cheers mate, very much what I have been thinking, thanks again guys for the advice/help